Mother of handcuffed Hobgood Elementary student files lawsuit against officer
The mother of a Tennessee school student has filed a lawsuit against an officer who handcuffed her daughter.
Elexecia Martin filed the lawsuit Friday, accusing Murfreesboro Police Department officer Chrystal Templeton of falsely arresting and maliciously prosecuting her daughter. Martin is seeking unspecified damages and a jury trial.
The lawsuit says that Templeton signed a petition in April to detain several Hobgood Elementary School students on charges of criminal responsibility following an off-campus fight caught on video.
A lawsuit accuses Murfreesboro Police Department officer Chrystal Templeton, pictured, of falsely arresting and maliciously prosecuting the daughter of Elexecia Martin who is an elementary school student
Templeton was the officer who investigated a cellphone video where a small child allegedly punched a larger child away from Hobgood's campus in mid-March, the lawsuit stated.
Eleven other children were in the area of the scuffle, though not all were visible in the video, according to the complaint.
'Based on her investigation, the review of the video, and her meeting with Ms. Martin and (the child), Officer Templeton should have known that there existed no probable cause to arrest (the child),' the complaint stated.
Martin's daughter was not visible in the video, but could be heard telling the smaller child to 'stop swinging at the larger child.'
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Officer Templeton ended up detaining 10 children from the Hobgood Elementary school but the charges were later dropped
Templeton allegedly went to Martin asking for help to identify the children who were present at the fight 'so she could deal with the situation 'informally', even assuring Ms. Martin that the children were not in trouble.'
Yet just days later, Templeton sought petitions against Hobgood students.
Templeton then told Hobgood Elementary School Principal Tammy Garrett telling her that some of the students would be taken into custody.
She promised that everything would be kept low-key and that handcuffs would not be used.
Despite being given advance notice of the arrests, Templeton told the Principal not to alert any parents of the impending arrests.
When the arrests began at the end of the school day, the girl was taken back into the office and held in custody.
'(The child) begged for her mother,' according to the lawsuit. 'She cried and vomited on the floor.'
Mom, Martin, who had been told about her daughter's forthcoming arrest was told she couldn't drive her daughter to the Rutherford County Youth Detention Center but that a police officer would have to do it and handcuff her.
Months later, the charges were dropped and although the Murfreesboro Police Department was not named as a party in the lawsuit, the major in charge of Templeton's division was placed on paid leave during the investigation.
The lawsuit states that a juvenile court judge later dismissed the charges against the students. The suit comes more than three months after the 10 children were charged by Murfreesboro police, including four handcuffed while on campus at Hobgood.
Martin argues that based on her investigation, Templeton should have known that there was no probable cause to arrest the girl.
Templeton declined requests to comment about the lawsuit.
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